Obama talks tax reform in Wis.

MILWAUKEE – President Barack Obama made his jobs pitch in Wisconsin Wednesday, pushing tax reforms and incentives for bringing back outsourced jobs to a crowd of assembled factory workers.

Obama will be raising campaign cash on the West Coast for the remainder of the week, but he started his trip here, at a Master Lock factory that he praised in his State of the Union address for bringing 100 jobs back from China. He used the factory as an example of his efforts to eliminate deductions and loopholes for companies that take jobs offshore — a key plank of the reelection campaign rhetoric he brought to this battleground state.

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Obama linked the tax reforms in the budget proposal he released Monday to the payroll tax cut deal working its way through Congress that’s proven a source of major political points for the president. He’s prioritized the extension, and pledged again Wednesday to sign the legislation as soon as it gets to his desk.

“Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. They’re taking deductions for the expenses of moving out of the United States,” he told the workers. “Meanwhile, companies that are doing the right thing and choosing to stay here, they get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. That doesn’t make sense. Everybody knows it doesn’t make sense. Politicians of both parties have been talking about changing it for years. So my message to Congress is: ‘Don’t wait. Get it done. Do it now.’”

Republicans have already lambasted the budget proposal and the continued deficit spending it includes, calling Obama’s plan for encouraging domestic manufacturing growth misbegotten.

“The best thing the president can do to prevent outsourcing is pull back on the destructive policies – like his health care law and regulations – and threat of tax hikes that are making it harder for American businesses to hire workers here at home,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

The president faced a much different landscape here than he did four years ago, when he won the state in a landslide. Wisconsin elected Republican majorities to both legislative chambers and to the governor’s office in 2010 and the state is now bitterly divided over the impending recall of Gov. Scott Walker.

Walker had been scheduled to join the president on his Master Lock tour, but spokesman Cullen Werwie told POLITICO that “Walker is still recovering from a nasty case of the flu.” The governor did greet Obama at the airport, and didn’t address any underlying tensions.